Wong, who is regarded as one of the most formidable intellects in the federal Parliament, is using her time in opposition to prepare for the event that she becomes foreign minister 18 months from now, which on current poll numbers is a firm likelihood.

She has the space to do this because foreign affairs isn’t the place for partisan hits.

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It doesn’t win or lose elections; Wong doesn’t have to stalk her counterpart Julie Bishop and inflict daily wounds. In a lengthy interview, Wong has to be cajoled into offering any criticism of Bishop or the government.

Most observers - Fairfax Media spoke to a wide range of people in the foreign policy sphere, all of whom preferred to speak privately - think Wong’s views are still taking shape, which is not surprising given she’s spent most of her political career in domestic portfolios. Keen to avoid overheated language today that will make her job harder in 18 months’ time, she is cautious in her language, particularly around China.

"I think you’re always better off seeking co-operation than seeking contest. And what do we think is right for Australia?”: Penny Wong.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

But a general picture emerges. Wong is very pro-free trade, bucking the stereotype attached to the Labor left faction to which she belongs. She takes the centrality of the US alliance to Australia’s security as a given, but affords Australia a conspicuously long leash to assert its independence within that alliance.

She puts a strong emphasis on building Australia’s relationships in South-east Asia - continuing a Labor tradition that can be charted from Chifley through to Keating and Evans.

She leans towards a glass half-full view of China. If there is an area in which the orthodox foreign policy community is watching closely to see where Wong will land, it is how she will position herself if and when the US decides to take a firmer stance in pushing back against Chinese assertiveness - and expects Australia’s help.

Donald Trump with Xi Jinping in Beijing in November.Credit:Bloomberg

This prospect is hardly a distant one. Washington’s two recent security statements both called out China - along with Russia - as a competitor that couldn’t be relied upon to follow the international system of rules which have, since World War II, helped ensure free and open trade, resolved many disputes peacefully and ensured small countries as well as large are heard and respected.

This is fundamental to Australia. As a middle power, Australia needs a rules-based system. It can’t impose its will on the world through sheer power, even if it wanted to.

When dissected, Wong’s views on the US and the rules-based order are revealing. On the one hand, she is resolute that the 70 years since World War II, in which the US has underwritten the global rules, have been about the best 70 years the world’s ever had.

“I think America has been the key guarantor in an international system which has enabled more peace and prosperity than probably any period in the world’s history,” she says. “The postwar period has been by historical terms a remarkably stable and peaceful period … We see there have been conflicts and we see a lot of tragedy and bloodshed, [but] in historical terms it’s actually been a remarkably stable period.”

Stephen Loosely, a senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, praises Wong’s “very mature understanding of the alliance as the bedrock of Australia’s national security”. Loosely is a former Labor senator and party elder statesman, but he is also a very solid supporter of the US alliance.

On the other hand, Wong has some forthright views about the US of 2018. She doesn’t back away, for instance, from a commentary she wrote for Fairfax Media after Donald Trump’s election in which she called Trump “a change point” and said his presidency meant Australians “need to consider a broader range of scenarios than was previously within contemplation”. It unnerved some pro-US thinkers at the time because it seemed to call for a rethink of the alliance.

This week she said those comments had “been proven correct”.

“My point about that was to say there will be times when there are differences of views,” she says.

Australia would have to work to ensure “constructive engagement” by the US in Asia.

“I think the US remains engaged in Asia, but we can’t simply sit back and assume that that constructive engagement will continue to the extent that we in the region want,” she says. “We will continue, as their ally and partner, to work with them and others in the region to ensure that constructive engagement continues.

“That means sometimes we will differ on issues but we should work as hard as we can in the context of our relationship to maximise their constructive engagement in the region.”

She is cautious on the general question of how far Australia should be prepared to go to back up the US if, having given up on Beijing’s behaving within the rules, Washington decides to push back more firmly.

“First, I think you’re always better off seeking co-operation than seeking contest. Second, it does come back to [the fact that] we’ve got an interest in a constructive US-China relationship and we should continue to encourage that. Third, I think it comes back to identifying very clearly what our national interests are. And what do we think is right for Australia?”

She adds that we should be telling the Americans what kind of strategy we want to fit into, rather than just accepting Washington's.

“We also ought to put our view about what that means as an ally. We should be putting - and I hope the government is doing this - [our views on] ... the architecture of that engagement, the narrative around that engagement, the specifics of that engagement … Part of what we can do as a US ally is ensure that we give our view about what the most constructive way of engaging with the US looks like.”

Penny Wong sees the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as a positive step.Credit:Bloomberg

Wong says the international system will need to evolve as major powers such as China have a quite legitimate expectation to be rulemakers as well as takers. Beijing's creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) - which the US tried to discourage Australia from joining - is an example of China’s making rules constructively to the benefit of the region.

What can’t be tolerated, she says, is for countries to unilaterally tear up the rule book when it suits them. In Singapore, she pointed to the South China Sea as an example - a reference to Beijing’s remaking the physical territory of those waterways in clear violation of international law.

But what do we do about it? China hawks - indeed many strategic thinkers - advocate sailing warships close to the islands to challenge Beijing's claim over the surrounding waters. Wong’s pro-US colleague Richard Marles has in the past expressed support for these operations.

This strand of thinking says if we stand up to China - or any other revisionist power - as a group, we’ll be making it clear such rule-breaking cannot be tolerated. So far, the US is the only country to have carried out these operations in the South China Sea. Everyone knows the US would have liked Australia to follow suit.

US and Philippine troops carry out manoeuvres in the South China Sea near Scarborough Shoal. Credit:AP

Wong doesn’t give a position on this sharp point. But observers doubt very much she would support such a move, which would be seen as highly provocative by Beijing.

“China will continue to develop economically, it will continue to become more assertive in our region and globally and I think we need to approach that fact with respect but not with fear," she says.

Wong's views here are not radical, it must be said. The Coalition has not carried out freedom-of-navigation operations. After some internal deliberations, it joined the AIIB. In a somewhat cloaked fashion, the government’s foreign policy white paper accepted the possibility that the US would play a less substantial role in maintaining the rules-based order in Asia and advocated reaching out to other like-minded Asian countries to hedge against a diminished or changed US role - a view Wong says she basically shares.

On closer ties to South-east Asia, Wong says she has been out in front of the government.

“We probably have a stronger regional focus, although they are coming to that late,” she says. “I think part of Labor tradition is a tradition of regionalism and our instinct around ASEAN and regional institutions is stronger.”

Indeed, she mounts a somewhat unfashionable defence of ASEAN, which because of its demand for consensus before action has been effectively neutered by China picking off a couple of members.

US President Donald Trump does the "ASEAN-way handshake" in Manila last year. The regional grouping is often dismissed but Wong insists it has value.Credit:AP

ASEAN is a strategic buffer for Australia, she argues, inviting critics to imagine the region without it.

Having been born in Malaysia to a Malaysian Chinese father and Australian mother, Wong says she has “a very instinctive sense of [South-east Asia’s] importance to us”.

One area where Wong is very strong is her advocacy of open economies. While a backlash in some advanced democracies against free trade has united left and right in an anti-globalist spasm, Wong has a clearly articulated rationale for openness.

Free trade grows the national pie as an aggregate. The benefits don’t naturally spread themselves evenly, but when combined with domestic redistribution policies, it unquestionably makes people better off, Wong says.

She accepts that political elites have failed to properly champion the benefits of free trade.

“But we have to stand against some of the nationalist and populist tendencies that we’re seeing. That’s not an answer,” she says.

“Apart from my strong view it’s not an answer to the well-being of the Australian people, particularly to lower and middle-income Australians, it’s actually not an answer to security and peace in the world. If you look at our history, the world is a more stable and peaceful place if we are more connected.

“An isolationist approach to economic policy and a defensive approach to international relations is not how you find security.”

In a little-noticed remark in a recent television interview, Wong noted that as foreign affairs spokeswoman, it was her job to see the strategic advantages in Australia's joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact.

That presages a potential internal tussle with colleagues, but demonstrates she is thinking in terms of the nation's external relations rather than her party's internal ones.

The view around Canberra is that Wong is still on the learning curve common to shadow foreign affairs ministers. The influence of her speechwriter Allan Behm - a former senior defence official - is obvious to everyone, though it is said Wong is highly interrogative of the advice she is given.

When she does reluctantly offer a criticism of Julie Bishop, it is this: “She has been a hard-working and competent foreign minister. I would make the observation that it has been, at times, difficult to see how she has articulated a framework and vision for Australia’s foreign policy. To me, fundamentally, foreign policy is about your place in the world and how you see Australia in the world. Having a sense of what your purpose is is as important as the day-to-day management."

A spokeswoman for Bishop said the minister had released "the most comprehensive and detailed" foreign policy white paper in 13 years, which "articulates her vision for Australia’s priorities, interests and values".

Wong's observation might be one that is easier to make from opposition than from the whirlwind of being in office and dealing with everything the world throws at you.

But it is obvious that she has, as much as anyone can, grasped the profundity of the changes Australia's region is facing. Observing that politicians always bang on about living "in a time of change", Wong says this is different - "a profoundly disruptive period".